New hotels in Santa Monica

Santa Monica is one of the oldest hotel markets on the Southern California coast, and it is effectively built out. The beachfront is a continuous wall of existing buildings, the city's planning rules are among the tightest in Los Angeles County, and there is nowhere left on Ocean Avenue to put up a tower. So the five openings tracked here share something easy to miss: not one of them is new construction. Every single one is an existing hotel that changed hands, changed flag, or changed name: sometimes all three at once.

Regent Santa Monica Beach is the former Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel. Sandbourne Santa Monica, Autograph Collection is the former Le Merigot. The Pierside Hotel is the former Wyndham Santa Monica At The Pier, now trading with no chain flag at all. Hyatt Centric Delfina Santa Monica moved from Marriott to Hyatt in a single September. Only Santa Monica Proper Hotel added floor area, and it did so by restoring a landmarked 1928 office block and attaching a new wing behind it. Between 2019 and 2026 that adds up to roughly 1,050 rooms repositioned in a city that built almost none.

What to do

A weekend in Santa Monica

Start at Santa Monica Pier, first opened in 1909 and still the city's defining landmark: a wooden deck carrying Pacific Park, a small amusement park with a solar-powered Ferris wheel and a roller coaster, plus the sign marking the western terminus of Route 66. Below it, Santa Monica State Beach runs the full width of the city, wide and flat, one of the most heavily used beaches in Los Angeles County. Walk it in either direction, then climb to Palisades Park, the narrow bluff-top strip of palm trees running about a mile and a half along Ocean Avenue with an uninterrupted view over Santa Monica Bay. Give the second day to the inland side: the Third Street Promenade, three pedestrianised blocks of shops, cinemas and street performers a few minutes from the pier, then dinner on Main Street.

A full week

With more time, the walk south along the boardwalk into Venice Beach takes 30 to 45 minutes on the sand and is the single best way to understand how this stretch of coast fits together. Bergamot Station, a former rail yard converted into a contemporary art complex, sits inland near the Metro line and absorbs an easy half-day. Montana Avenue, a mile or so north of downtown, is the boutique-and-café strip residents actually use, quieter and more expensive than the Promenade. Malibu is a short drive north up the Pacific Coast Highway, and downtown Los Angeles is a direct ride on the Metro E Line, which makes Santa Monica an unusually workable base for a car-free trip in a city built around cars.

Neighborhoods

Ocean Avenue and the beachfront

The hotel strip, and where four of the five openings sit. Rooms here face the Pacific, the pier is walkable from all of them, and the trade-off is noise, traffic and the highest rates in the city. Regent Santa Monica Beach sits at the northern end, Sandbourne Santa Monica, Autograph Collection a few hundred metres south at 1740 Ocean Avenue, and The Pierside Hotel at the corner of Colorado Avenue, closer to the pier ramp than any other hotel in town.

Downtown and the Third Street Promenade

Four blocks inland, and cheaper for it, though the beach is still a ten-minute walk. Santa Monica Proper Hotel occupies the block at 700 Wilshire Boulevard with its entrance on 7th Street; its rooftop pool deck is the only one on the Westside, which is how a hotel without a beach frontage keeps the ocean in the picture.

Montana Avenue

North of downtown, residential and low-rise, with independent boutiques and cafés rather than chains. No hotels in this guide, but it is where guests staying on Ocean Avenue tend to end up on a second morning.

Main Street and Ocean Park

South of downtown, running toward Venice: independent shops, galleries and a slower pace than the Promenade. This is the part of Santa Monica that still looks like a beach town rather than a resort strip.

Which hotel for your trip

A special occasion, price no object

Regent Santa Monica Beach is the top of the market here, and the reason is space rather than address: entry-level rooms start at 720 square feet, roughly double what most of its beachfront neighbours offer, and the top suite runs to 3,200. It also holds the only Guerlain Wellness spa on the West Coast (10,000 square feet, twelve treatment rooms) and Orla, Michael Mina's Mediterranean dining room. Rates start around $1,100.

Design over frontage

Santa Monica Proper Hotel is the design benchmark in the city, Kelly Wearstler's first hotel for Proper Hospitality and still the group's founding property. The restoration of the 1928 Santa Monica Professional Building won the Santa Monica Conservancy's President's Preservation Award, and the rooftop pool, the Calabra restaurant above it and the Surya Ayurvedic spa make the four-block walk to the sand a fair trade.

Beachfront without the Regent's rates

Sandbourne Santa Monica, Autograph Collection reopened the old Le Merigot in May 2024 with 175 rooms reworked by Icelandic designer Gulla Jónsdóttir, a ceramics artist residency and clay classes by the pool, and Marelle, a 187-seat Californian dining room run by Santa Monica native chef Raphael Lunetta.

Closest to the pier

The Pierside Hotel is the nearest hotel to Santa Monica Pier and was the first new hotel on Ocean Avenue in eleven years when it dropped the Wyndham flag in February 2023. Its 132 rooms come with a heated saltwater pool, The Surfing Fox restaurant and an on-site rental shop for boards and bikes.

Groups, meetings and longer stays

Hyatt Centric Delfina Santa Monica is the largest of the five at 315 rooms, with eleven event venues over 15,000 square feet including a rooftop ballroom for 400. A $16 million renovation finished in autumn 2025 rebuilt the rooms and added the Coastal Harvest Bar & Kitchen, and seven Sunset Suites have private ocean-view balconies with whirlpool tubs.

Frequently asked questions

What is the newest hotel to open in Santa Monica?

Regent Santa Monica Beach, which opened on 1 October 2024, is the most recent full opening tracked here. Hyatt Centric Delfina Santa Monica switched brands in September 2024 and finished its renovation in autumn 2025, so it is arguably the most recently completed.

Why are there no newly built hotels in Santa Monica?

The city is small, dense and effectively built out along the coast, with strict height and development controls and no vacant beachfront sites. Every opening in this guide is a conversion, a rebranding or a restoration of an existing building, which is why several of these hotels have been in the same buildings, under different names, for decades.

Which Santa Monica hotel has the best spa?

Regent Santa Monica Beach holds Guerlain Wellness, the French house's first spa on the West Coast, with twelve treatment rooms across 10,000 square feet. Santa Monica Proper Hotel runs Surya, an Ayurvedic spa, alongside a recovery suite and a class studio.

Is there a hotel in Santa Monica with a rooftop pool?

Santa Monica Proper Hotel has the only rooftop pool deck on the Westside, shared with its Calabra restaurant and bar. The beachfront hotels have ground-level or podium pools facing the ocean instead.

Which hotel is closest to Santa Monica Pier?

The Pierside Hotel, at the corner of Ocean Avenue and Colorado Avenue, is the closest hotel to the pier ramp.

How do you get from Santa Monica to downtown Los Angeles without a car?

The Metro E Line light rail runs directly between the two, with a stop close to the pier and downtown Santa Monica. Los Angeles International Airport is about 15 minutes away by road without traffic.

Is Santa Monica within walking distance of Venice Beach?

Yes. The boardwalk runs continuously south from Santa Monica State Beach into Venice, roughly a 30-to-45-minute walk along the sand, or a few minutes by bike or scooter.